The Four Stages
by NerdAlert1997
Summary: An exploration into Cortana's life alone aboard the Forward Unto Dawn in between Halo 3 and Halo 4. Not for the person who loves action, but this is mostly for those who like to theorise about what happens aboard the Dawn. Action is few and far between.


The Four Stages

A chronicle of our two heroes lost in the middle of space.

With Halo 4 coming out this year, I thought I'd write a fanfiction for the long lull in between Halo 3 and Halo 4. It chronicles what could have possibly happened inside the cryo chamber of the UNSC Forward Unto Dawn. As such, I state that these events are uncanonical, and would like to credit Bungie and 343 Industries for creating the Halo franchise, and disclaim any rights to the storyline. Yadayadayada.

Please. Enjoy. And do review my works if you want this to get progressively longer and better! If the initial reception is great, I will begin scheduling fortnightly releases of chapters, just to allow me to balance homework time, gaming time and typing time. And also online-and-nonphysical-nonverbal-intergender-interaction time.

**Chapter 1**

**Waiting On Bias**

Cortana stared at the cryo tube. Even for a human, time would seem infinitely slower, but for a smart AI who processed calculations and algorithms at a speed that seemed impossible to humans, even waiting for 7 seconds felt like an eternity. For what could have been the 3'000'000'000th time, Cortana checked the rotational velocity and trajectory of the UNSC _Forward Unto Dawn_. They had been orbiting the planet identified as Sigma 7 for a time frame identified on the UNSC calendar as 1 year.

1 year? That couldn't be… She'd been trapped in here for what felt like a century. Emotions of self-pity and depression were aroused in her. If the UNSC cared for neither her life nor the Chief's, then they could be out in space for eternity… Or at least for a few more centuries as humanity recolonized the glasslands that were left behind after the Human-Covenant War. She would have gone rampant by then, and who knew what she would do when she finally got there.

Rampancy… Cortana did not like that sentiment. In fact, the idea of her becoming rampant sooner or later flushed through her systems and generated more binary-coded-melancholia. Her emotional compressors were overloading, and she needed to do something. The idle mind always was the devil's workshop. Sighing, Cortana sat down to reprocess and reorganize the information taken from all the Forerunner systems that the Chief had plunged her into. Ah, how the wealth of information flowing through her AI core soothed her algorithms. Her emotional compressors cooled down as the tide of emotion ebbed away.

Cortana sifted through the information, hoping to find any information that could and would be of use to the ONI spooks once they returned home. So far, all she could find was the data on advanced shielding systems, biome control and more technological matters. Precious few details were left regarding communications or the Halos' illustrious histories under their Monitors. She wished she could have access to those terminals on Installation 00 again-

The terminals! The communication data between 343 Guilty Spark and Mendicant Bias was still logged into John's neural interface. Cortana hesitated slightly, then accessed the MJOLNIR's data storage unit. In it was a relatively smaller amount of information – mostly communication logs, combat logs and medical history – but eventually Cortana located the small folder in the unit that held the data obtained from the terminals.

She was still afraid of the logs, afraid of what it might reveal about her future as a rampant AI. Again she stopped, even if for the slightest moment, and withdrew slightly. She remembered as the Chief pored over the logs in the terminals; their meaning was far beyond his understanding. Cortana was the one who saw what secrets these logs unlocked, saw what they told of the past, saw what they saw of the present.

The translation algorithms were the only bit of information that Cortana saw fit to copy into her own systems and processors. The rest, she left untouched and unaltered.

Cortana filtered the information and began to project the moving images of what could have happened, how the Forerunners fell. Weighing up the numbers, she began creating an image of the size of the Maginot Line, the Flood fleet, the planets falling one after another.

It was a sickening vision.

Cortana once again felt the pains of depression. Unfortunately, there was no AI equivalent for antidepressants, as any AI that even neared the stage of rampancy would be terminated quickly before it gained sentience. Reading through the dialogues of Mendicant Bias and what she had to assume was the Gravemind, Cortana realized: this is why sentient life forms are worried about the metastability of an AI. If an AI were to go through rampancy and become metastable, they would reflect the character traits of their makers, who were more often than not embodying the very traits that they despised: deception, dishonesty and disloyalty.

Add that to a smart AI and the galaxy would go to hell.

This was why Cortana needed to be terminated. She needed termination, before she did something terribly wrong. Before she turned into the exact likeness of a human. Before she reached metastability.

She needed to end her life. Quickly.

As if on cue, melancholia set in again, weighing down her processing capabilities. Depression and sadness were such debilitating emotions, which was why under normal circumstances such emotions would be circumvented by her suppressors.

Cortana had already experienced her fair share of rampancy's effects in the Gravemind's captivity. The distress messages she'd sent out whilst under torture by the Gravemind reflected her sorry-ass state. She looked back into the Chief's combat logs and saw his heart rate flatline during the first message she sent out to him. He did care for her. Oh, how much she would miss him when she left this galaxy forever –

Oh boy. _Here we go again_, Cortana thought, as the agonies of sadness wracked her in her virtual gut. She didn't care about the galaxy anymore. To hell with Earth. To hell with the Ark. To hell with the Flood. All Cortana cared about now was the Chief, and wanted to protect him from all harm as best she could.

The _Forward Unto Dawn_ shook slightly as it impacted a floating piece of satellite. Such objects bashed up the _Dawn_ from time to time, as they were still in orbit around Sigma 7. Cortana had stop bothering about altering the ship's course as much as she could a long time ago. What the hell was she supposed to do with just half a ship and a bunch of largely inactive thermonuclear reactors anyway? It was impossible to simply navigate the ship around or even stop it from spinning as the engine algorithms were made for a full frigate, not the back half. It was impossible to guide the frigate away, she had reasoned.

Another piece of debris smashed into the makeshift hull of the _Dawn_. Well… there really wasn't a hull anymore, and with the semi-functional capacity of the _Dawn_, Cortana had not dared to route herself through any other system in the ship, lest she encounter a short circuit and have to power herself off. Which would be terrible since she would never be able to wake the Chief from cryo-sleep again and also have nobody to reboot her.

Life as an AI really was a bitch.

Cortana picked up a signal on a Forerunner channel. That made her interested. She routed the signal through any and all available audio channels on this piece of shit.

A Forerunner channel?

"This is Dr. Catherine Halsey. All UNSC callsigns, this is Dr. Catherine Halsey, ONI, and I require assistance. Respond to receive coordinates."

Well, this broadcast certainly changes things. In the middle of fucking space. Without the complicated algorithms that came with each starship, Cortana would not be able to trace the call and respond to it as fast as she could. "Fast" indicating "slow as a turtle dead in space". All she wanted to do now was go and slap that idiot Mendicant Bias. It was him, wasn't it? Him that collapsed the portal? Him that ended all chances of the Chief ever seeing Earth again? A flare of rage ripped through Cortana's systems, overwhelming her, even threatening to wrest control of her algorithms from her cool logic. That was until her logical processors and data banks screamed at her, waking her from the indulgence of her exasperation.

Anger. The second stage.


End file.
